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Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic is a performance artist from Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Like many artists, she deals with pain through art. Marina never felt loved enough. Her mother beat her; she never kissed her. Her parents fought. In spite of this, Marina wants to lift the human spirit through art.

The best advice a professor gave her: “A good artist creates one good work in her lifetime. A great artist creates two good works.”

Marina’s advice to artists:

“If you draw with your right hand, keep drawing until you can draw with your eyes closed. Then stop and draw with your left hand. Don’t ever get too comfortable.”

When Mariana taught art, she told her students to take a hundred sheets of paper. Over the course of the semester, she made the students write down all their good ideas and put them in a stack. The bad ideas were thrown into a wastebasket. At the end of the semester, she said it was the bad ideas that were the best ideas. In other words, go where you’re afraid to go. Try new things. Failure is a teacher.

Artist William Kentridge would agree with her. He said sometimes the best ideas are really bad.